


never ever

by Anemoi



Category: Electronic (UK Band), New Order (Band)
Genre: M/M, also Bernard Sumner/his complete lack of self control i guess, this is seriously longer than i ever thought itd get
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 09:38:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17978915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: starting Electronic, 1987-1991





	never ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redandgold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/gifts).



> Disclaimer: New Order is literally one of those bands where you find out some fact about them and then sort of wish you hadn't??? very light on facts, although the weirdest bits probably happened. 
> 
> For Rach, bc manchester bois. also for putting up w my endless music wank i wuff u

 

 

Heathrow always feels dusty. Maybe he should be used to it by now, but something about airports always puts a damper on any excitement he feels about the tour. The flat linoleum, the incessant squeaks of the wheels on the little luggage carts, the rhythmic waves of static across the boarding screens. He’s staring at it- all the capitals and times, plane numbers morphing into one by each fizzy wave, when he hears Peter calling him. 

"What?" he says. It feels like coming out of a dream, the present strangely airless and suffocating. 

"I said," Peter says, an eyebrow raised. "They're calling us to board now."

"Alright," Bernard says. He tries hard not to make it come out cold, but it probably does. It comes out wrong, anyway, because Peter turns away, a shutter falling down over his face like the shadow of storm clouds on a plain.

Bernard picks up his bag and his passport, feeling the heft of it, all those pages heavy with stamps and dates and entries and exits into foreign countries. He wants things to stop, badly, some giant hand to come out of the sky and press him still exactly where he stood on the dully geometric airport carpet. But he made himself walk, one foot at a time. He joins the queue and says  _ sorry _ , at Peter's back, even though he's not sure Peter heard him at all. 

  
  


-

 

It’s fall in California but it’s not like anyone can tell, everything covered in this heat baked haze that threatened to erupt into thunderstorms at any moment. America was too big to be tacked on to tours, but that’s what they did- all around England and then overseas. In San Diego Bernard shuts his eyes and can see the whole of it spread out till the end of the year, California and Texas and then up north to Canada, back to New York, like a pinball machine gone haywire. 

Most of the time he doesn’t think of anything beyond the next show. But it hits, stupid hard, this time, takes all his breath away between one second and the next.  _ Like _ , he thinks with amusement verging on hysteria,  _ like a premonition of a thousand hangovers.  _

So it had to happen, really- Irvine Meadows, Peter looking at him like he’d just said some unspeakable thing. Stephen and Gillian looking faintly shocked, Tony and Rob with perfect mirrored expressions of amazement. 

_ I want to work with other people. _ Jesus. Peter looks like Bernard is spoiling everything they've ever worked towards, spat on Ian's grave to boot. Peter’s actually so angry he keeps balling his fists and opening his mouth but nothing comes out. 

That’s the kicker, Peter’s expression, and suddenly everything about the evening threatens to bubble up inside Bernard and spill over, and he knew, suddenly, madly, that he was going to laugh and then Peter would have to hit him because that's just how they operated, and then they'd have to cancel the show or something- 

"I'll go get ready," Bernard says. He puts his hand over his mouth and coughs, inanely. Then he walks out. He thinks Peter was about to follow him, but Tony starts speaking again, in that low wheedling tone of his, and no one comes after him.

He goes back up to his room and sits by the window and feels the weight, not quite lifting off him but moving and shifting over his shoulders. Nails digging into his palms, little crescent moons spelling out his quiet victory. He sits until it's time.

Then he goes downstairs and they play the show. 

  
  


-

 

The band don’t quite give him the cold shoulder, because Stephen had no idea how to give anyone the cold shoulder. He quickly went back to normal, save some lingering hurt looks that Bernard could feel on his back sometimes, and Gillian never said anything to him save about the music. So it was actually just Peter who gave him a cold shoulder. 

 

It’s surprising how well they worked as a band now, so much so they didn’t need to actually talk. It’s a good thing that came out of touring- this, like going down familiar ways with sure feet and eyes blindfolded. A week after the pronouncement- a week of sad puppy eyes and Peter trying to trip him coming on stage at every opportunity- they play in San Francisco. 

Bernard goes to the venue alone, craning his neck up from his taxi window at the rust colored bridge, fingertips pressed against the glass. The Bunnymen were playing with them, and the Bunnymen were one of those bands that everyone somehow liked, the Liverpool/Manchester rivalry somehow even adding to it. The set is fine- the audience is fine- Bernard scrambles off stage after with that familiar buzz of relief and Pernod, and he’s sitting with his back to the transformer, eyes shut to try and fend off the urge to vomit. 

“Bernard!” The voice sounds Manc enough for Bernard to shift around and squint at him. He’s skinny and short and has too long hair. He drops his cigarette when Bernard looks at him, almost apologetically, grinding it out under his heel. 

For a second Bernard struggles to remember who he was, but then it slots in, and he clasps Johnny's hand. Standing up made everything spin madly, disco lights going off in his brain and behind his eyes, and Bernard winces. 

“What are you doing here?” he says. “The Smiths?” 

Johnny’s grinning, it made his eyes crinkle into well worn lines under all the eyeliner.  “Came to see you.” 

Bernard’s not sure New Order warranted a cross pond trip from someone who’s probably busy enough with their own band, but Johnny seems unperturbed. 

“Where are you going?” Johnny says, shifting. He’s still antsy, Bernard remembers. Bernard looks around for the rest of the band, but they’ve all fucked off quickly after the show ended. Peter’s probably muttering darkly into Ian Mac’s ear about Bernard’s imminent betrayal with a groupie in his lap right this moment. 

“Probably back to the hotel. There’ll be- drinks, you know. Are you coming?” 

Johnny lights up. Bernard’s still reeling at him showing up out of nowhere to refuse when he says, “Come with me instead.” 

  
  


-

  
  


He doesn't really remember much of anything that happened- where they went, what they did, except in bright flashes of sound and laughter, which was par for the course. Much, much later, they wind up next to the beach. The sun’s threatening to rise any minute beyond the piers, and it’s unreasonably loud with seabirds.  There's something like a baseball park to their left, and the bridge in the distance, the bay before them. He couldn't see much of it yet, all smudged and backlit from that pre-dawn light, but it was still very beautiful, like watercolors. It could be the drugs talking. He remembers this moment clearest, like a photograph, Johnny laughing and the two of them lying shoulder to shoulder on the sand. 

"Why did you really come?" Bernard says. 

Johnny laughs. "Oh. I- We should get together. In Manchester." 

Bernard could barely hear them, it was getting that loud. Seagulls are no joke.  "What?" 

"Make songs! Like a band!"  

"I'm already in a band. You want to join New Order?" 

"No. We should work together. Guitars! Synths! Together!" 

Bernard looks at him, shiny eyed and waving his arms around. Johnny could be an astronaut right then, that's how high he is. Bernard curls up, giggling at the revelation. It sort of made sense, but only in a far off way, and he couldn't really think about the details of it. He does want to make music with other people. But Johnny? He didn't even really know who Johnny was. But it didn't matter just then. Johnny's smiling at him, and there's only really one thing to say. 

"Alright. Okay." 

  
  


-

  
  


He wakes up on the floor of his own hotel room, squinting blearily at his perfectly made bed above him. It seemed like a metaphor that he'd made it so far and fell short. 

 

There's a note on the hotel stationary. Bernard stares at it for a bit before the messy handwriting untangles itself in front of him

_ Give me a call when you get back to Manchester. Will be waiting! JM _

He tears the page out carefully and drags himself on to the bed, falls back asleep with it clutched against his chest.

  
  


-

There's the rest of the tour to play through, and Bernard doesn't spend the whole time thinking about Johnny. Only when he catches himself focusing too hard on getting the sequencer going, when he's holding the microphone a little too tight- he thinks,  _ Johnny _ like an escape hatch. 

The first time he heard Johnny’s guitar it was in some studio complex- the sound of it came down the drafty corridors like a summer wind. He remembers standing stock still for a second, stupidly, Peter bumping into him and cuffing the back of his head absently. Ian leaning in for a light from Stephen- and the sweetness of that guitar like candy floss.  _ What the fuck is that? _  Ephemeral. It conjured up images of pink ribbons in girls’ hairs, cold lemonade, sunshine on grass. Afterwards he asked who was practicing in those rooms, and borrowed a record off someone- it hadn’t sounded quite the same. Not the raw unfiltered sound of it. Especially with Morrissey in the foreground, bemoaning everything under the sun. 

He remembers it was altogether too sweet for him, too smooth and orchestral, the discomfit sanded down to soft edges that bore you along and could never hurt. But something about Johnny’s guitar still stayed with him.

The first time he saw Johnny in person they were in a bathroom, everything lit up in a ghastly shade of pink, puking their guts out in synchronized time in neighboring cubicles. He has trouble remembering the guitar and connecting it to the man- boy? Johnny with his hair too long and bags under his too wide eyes, legs like sticks in his shiny boots. He smiled and moved sort of twitchy, like he had trouble keeping himself still for long, and told Bernard he was a fan and saw him at all the early shows with New Order. Bernard doesn’t really remember how he reacted to that, but truth be told, probably not well. 

 

-

  
  


It's winter when he gets back to Manchester- the slap of sleet on his face, turning up his collar to fend off the cold. It makes Florida fade like some sort of dream in the back of his head. That’s how it feels, Manchester: like nothing else in the world could beat it for sheer solidity, the presence of steel and brick. Nowhere else in the world feels quite so nauseatingly real. 

The four of them break apart with little to say, the next tour starting barely a month away. He calls Johnny in a phone box, bundled in awkwardly with his luggage, watching the glass fog up and listening to the dial tone. 

Johnny’s waiting for him when the cab drops him off at the end of the drive. He’s not dressed for the cold at all, oblivious and shivering slightly in a waterproof, boots up to his knees. 

"Were you serious?" Bernard blurts, before he can manage to say hi. Johnny looks at him, one hand outstretched for his bag, for a second, not in a way that seemed like he was rethinking his decision, but like he was reaffirming it. 

"Yes," Johnny says, simply. And Bernard thinks,  _ Oh _ . He likes Johnny when he's sober too. 

 

-

 

It's still harder to make songs with someone he doesn't quite know. It all felt alien, actually- he thought, maybe, that he was too far sundered from the rest of New Order to make anything anymore, but it was different than a true stranger. There's still, he thinks, comfort in doing things he's used to. Now that was an unforeseen consequence of working with other people, Bernard thinks ruefully. Peter would have a field day if he crawled back to the band forswearing all other collaborations. 

Johnny wasn’t terrible company. He’s drily funny- the first time Bernard makes a deadpan joke and Johnny laughs he feels a weight lift off him. Without the drinks and the drugs they circled each other warily, politely almost. In the end they spend two weeks just playing different things in Johnny's home studio, bringing in new synthesizers and building a sequencer, Bernard watching with amusement as Johnny pressed different buttons on the synth and recorded every possible sound he could think of. 

When the January tour rolled around Bernard leaves feeling like he'd started something, something hopeful. He keeps seeing Johnny in the doorway, waving goodbye, cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth. He never smoked around Bernard, and that detail catches him off guard. So this was what working with Johnny might be like-  a little flame of hope he has to cup both hands around; but it cheered him up anyway. 

  
  


-

 

In the summer they play the Hacienda again, and everyone's only talking about one thing- Johnny's left the Smiths. Bernard wonders if he should visit- call him or something. He tries, prodding coins into the corner phone box while the queue behind him complained, but no one picks up. 

So he lets it be. They play Glastonbury, Reading, and he sees Johnny in the Hacienda the day before they're set to leave for the States again.

"You're always running off to America," Johnny says. He grinds out his cigarette when Bernard comes over, gesturing at the bartender for drinks. 

He counts out his spare change and nudges the vodka over to Johnny. Johnny smiles at this, raises his eyebrows like  _ you have to pay? _

"I'm a joint owner," Bernard says, rolling his eyes. "Also we've been in the red since we opened." 

Johnny whistles, half sympathetic. He's twitchier than usual, Bernard thinks. Even after draining the shot. He wants to ask Johnny if he's alright, but couldn't quite get it out. It's clear, anyway, that Johnny wasn't alright. There's something grim about him, like what he's been holding under the surface has finally shattered and all his strength has gone to keep up the facade. 

"Johnny," he says, not sure what he wants to say. 

" _ Barney _ ," Johnny says, but he smiles anyway, faint, like Bernard's inability to say things was an endearing trait instead of frustrating. "I'll see you. Have fun in the States." 

He leans over and hugs Bernard, hard, and makes his way back through the crowd. Bernard watches him go and tries not to think about the impending tour. Suddenly he was still too sober for it all, and there was only one thing to cure that. 

 

-

 

He doesn't seen Johnny at all for a long time. He calls, but it was sort of a half hearted affair. He does hear everything Johnny's been up to- the session musician, the myriad collaborations, Morrissey in the papers like a jilted wife. Every english paper painting Johnny as the devil who broke up England's greatest band. Peter thinks it's the absolute worst insult ( _ the Smiths? England's best band? _ ) but Bernard considers keeping clippings of all the best bits and sending a collage to Johnny. There's only one way through the splinter, he thinks, through the breaking of something that had meant everything. It involves a lot of drinks, a lot of drugs, and taking the piss out of everything that everyone else deemed sacrosanct. 

 

Ibiza happens like one long weekend- he's not sure he slept at all for four months, certainly didn't feel the lack of it- everything painted in neon on the back of his eyelids, half hearted attempts to record in the backroom, the four of them squished together like sardines with spare drum equipment. Somehow it loosens things up between them- or maybe it's just the drugs, which made everything sound brighter and better than what he suspected they really sounded. It didn't matter, anyway, since no one should be listening to these sober- 

He liked Ibiza. He didn't really like a lot of places, but Ibiza was like one giant club, one giant flavor cauldron where they played anything with a beat and his heartbeat can latch on to the rhythm, can let himself go in one long slide without thinking too hard about what the next day would bring, since all the days blended together. The slow spin of the bright sky above him as he teeters on the edge of the pool- Peter screaming at the lizards sitting on their sequencers, Bernard and Stephen and Gillian howling with laughter- driving home when the sun's just come up above the edge of the skyline over the sea.

So it's a bit of a comedown when they get back to London with less than half of an album. 

 

-

In between recording the rest of Technique in London, he manages weekends at Johnny’s, trying to make some of their demos into actual songs. The second time around he shows up at Johnny’s with little fanfare, and spend almost all their time in the studio for a change. There’s just one thing Bernard doesn’t really understand- the fact that Johnny completely ignores his guitar most sessions. 

"Why don't you," he says, nudging Johnny's guitar closer to him. "Put some guitar on it." 

Johnny looks at it for a half second, dismissively. Bernard couldn't believe it; probably should document it for austerity. "It doesn't need any." 

"Nonsense." 

Johnny drops his pen and looks at him, squinting. "Why don't you put some guitar on it. You're a guitarist too, Bernard." 

"Not like you," Bernard says. He picks up the gibson and strums it, gently. It felt almost like a violation, but Johnny's just watching him, head tilted slightly. 

 

He played for a bit, deliberately dropping a few chords, grinning a little every time Johnny winced. 

Finally Johnny threw up his hands and reached out with his arms, like he was asking Bernard to hand him the baby. 

“I heard you play before, you know. Sweet as anything,” Bernard says. 

Johnny’s not looking at him. He just sits, hands folded over the guitar. 

Then he picks it up and starts playing. It wasn’t sweet, or jangly. It wasn’t the Smiths. He plays through the rhythm twice, and then looks up at Bernard, and smiles, hard. Bernard scrambles for the 8 track. 

He thinks it was important, that, somehow. That they were more than what they’ve done before. And it feels strange, that he knew exactly what Johnny felt. How he couldn’t be himself anymore, how the world had taken what he used to be and ripped it to shreds and all that’s left is the stinging present, and anything he could make of it. 

-

 

They manage to get a few people on board the record, including Neil and Chris, so everything sort of gathers momentum.  The record- because that’s what it’s shaping up to be, not just a few songs they can put out as singles. It’s something  _ good,  _ Bernard thinks, and the thought makes him dizzy. They also have a name. Bernard had been bouncing ideas off Johnny for a week, summarily shot down in turn by Johnny, when they do an interview in the Hacienda in between testing out the new track in the DJ booth. 

“What’s the band name, then?” the journalist says. His name was Jim or Tom or something like that, which made Bernard feel a little guilty, because he’s fairly certain he’s a frequenter at the Hacienda. Johnny shifts awkwardly beside him. Bernard casts his eye over the room and settles on the air conditioning. 

It wasn’t on, of course. It’s one of those old units that were completely shit but somehow didn’t get upgraded by the Hacienda, probably because everyone who owned the Hacienda was going broke. 

“Electronic,” Bernard says, looking away from  _ Electronic AIR CONDITIONER  _ written in loopy font on the unit’s front. He waits for the familiar dismissive snort from Johnny, but somehow Johnny’s nodding along. They watch the interviewer scribble it down. 

Afterwards Johnny kicks Bernard’s leg when they troop out of the meeting room, and Bernard laughs, dodging him. They go back down to the club and play their new track, cramped together on the balcony. Bernard can’t stop himself from looking at Johnny, not certain why. Johnny talks a lot, now that they’ve gotten past the first polite stage. He glances at Bernard sometimes, smiles when he sees Bernard still looking. His hair is still slightly too long, and he has to flip it out of his eyes every sentence or so, hand under his chin and fingers curved around his jaw. Bernard resists the sudden urge, from out of nowhere, that made him want to reach out and touch Johnny’s face. 

And the name sticks. Bernard has bite his lip to stifle a smile the next time Johnny says,  _ We’re Electronic _ , no prompting from the interviewer needed. 

 

-

They get an impressive amount done in a few short sessions, even though Johnny promises to keep working on their tracks whenever he was free, and to send it over to Bernard once he’s done his part. New Order’s on the eve of another tour- in North America again, practically all the same venues; it made Bernard excited and exhausted in the same old way.

  
  


And this happens, though it’s so strangely removed from the rest of everything that Bernard has trouble seeing it as something that really happened, rather than just a dream he managed to concoct- 

But it had to be real. They’re walking back from the Hacienda to where they’ve parked the car, and it’s snowing so hard they’ve had to hold on to each other to avoid getting lost, everything blanked out in a fog of white. It was sort of ridiculous, trying to drive home, but Johnny had had an idea for a song and he didn’t want to wait. Sometimes ideas just evaporated, he insisted. Sometimes they had to be acted on, immediately. So they rushed out, right into the snow. 

Except the wind stops right when they turn the corner at the end of the street, and everything stills all of a sudden, like they’re in a snow globe all frozen in glass. Johnny turns to him, too close and still half drunk, mouth turned up in wonder, and-

_ Oh god _ , Bernard thinks.  _ This is it _ . He could see a faint limn of light over Johnny’s head, kind of like a halo, sodium street light colored. Snow is falling very gently over them, the wind blowing flurries over them like thin layers of powdered sugar. Bernard licks his lips and tastes the fresh snow and Johnny’s looking at him, mouth slightly parted and eyes wide. 

Bernard leans forwards, but Johnny’s too fast for him, pulling him into a hug that knocked all the breath out of him so he ends up clinging to the back of Johnny’s jacket, breathing in. 

"Oh no," Johnny says. Bernard thinks that pretty much summed it up. 

So he wasn't ready for what came next, which is Johnny pushing him away, and then reaching up and holding his face, firmly- not hard enough to hurt, which is what Peter always did, but gentle- 

 

He wants to bottle up the feeling of kissing Johnny, just like he always does, when the present gets like that so intense and shining like a sun through clouds. Bottle it and store it for a song, or the next melody, use it, somehow. 

It never happens again, because -- _ Not us- No _ \-- because the work, because the songs, because nights flopped over the sequencer rubbing sleep out of his eyes, the easy press of their knees in the backseat of a cab, making each other laugh in the middle of throwing up, the beat sickly rolling over them but with Johnny there beside him the world is still real, still good, still-

But he has one more memory to slot in amongst the rest, and if it happened just once- maybe that means in another world it'll keep happening, maybe infinite possibilities, moments, even if it passed them by in this one. So it happened.

He holds Johnny's wrists, and then his face, pushes his too long hair out of his eyes and kisses him back. The driving snow piling down on them, every part of him cold except where he’s touching Johnny. And Johnny laughs right into the kiss. 

 

-

 

New Order tour with Technique in the States, and no one understands the strobe lights and the music. It's a bit disconcerting. It's all very new, what they brought from Ibiza, and it takes a long while to settle in. It's mad, Bernard thinks, that this is their job- to be off their head and at the edge of everything, listening for the change in music, waiting to capture it in their own songs. Mad in a good way. Mad in a way that he could never want to swap it for anything else, no matter the price it asked of him. 

Unsuccessful raves aside, when summer comes around he's spending most of the time touring in hotel pools, staying submerged till his fingers are all wrinkled under their calluses and emerging only for cocktails. He misses Johnny viscerally, and it makes him uncomfortable, how Johnny had managed to slide under his skin and stay there.  

The rest of the tour passes almost as usual, with the same-but-different hotels and practice rooms, dark venues and long suffocating bus rides. Peter swearing and kicking his amp while the three of them sit there wearily, watching his anger muted out by the clattering air conditioning. Somehow the air conditioning that summer sticks in his brain most of all, the way it never got cold until they called someone in and then it operated almost too well, blasting out so much freezing arctic air that they'd had to turn it off, troop outside to stand and shiver, blinking in the sunlight. 

Predictably Stephen comes down with a flue first, but it dragged all of them down to the same sniffling irritated mess. They play in Chicago and Bernard does the usual go around, forgetting he’s just had the flu, so except instead of waking up in his hotel room, or someone else's hotel room, or the floor of a nightclub, he wakes up in the hospital. 

"You alright?" Stephen says, his coat sliding off him as he stretched. Bernard felt absurdly touched that he was there. 

He tries to say something but it just comes out in a croak. "Wh- happened?" 

Stephen looks at him, pityingly. "Your stomach lining's gone, mate." 

Bernard wants to tell him that didn't sound realistic, but he finds it hard to really care about anything. Everything weighed a ton, and the drip was doing something weird to his heart. So he just shuts his eyes. After a while he feels Stephen sigh and his hand settles on Bernard's wrist, curls around it like an anchor. It's comforting, anyway. It's something. 

 

-

 

It wasn't as bad as Stephen made it out to be, even though everyone judged him for a while after, and the rest of the tour finished without anything more hedonistic. It's the tail end of summer when they fly back from New York. Bernard feels so tired it’s making his brain leak out of his ears. It feels like months of jetlag all catching up to him at once, all of it. Suddenly he couldn’t stand anything about New Order- Peter crunching an apple, Stephen shifting from foot to foot, even Gillian, standing there aloof as usual. 

 

He leaves them without saying what he meant, because he couldn’t, really. But he knew in his bones he didn’t want to see them again. For a long time. 

"Hi," he says, on Johnny's doorstep, and couldn’t get another word out.  He'd called, of course. But it feels different, actually seeing Johnny in his shapeless sweater, a cigarette he hadn't managed to get rid of before Bernard arrived hanging out one side of his mouth, hair all rucked up on the back of his head. 

"Bernard," Johnny says, bounces down the two steps to hug him. Bernard sways, even though Johnny weighed barely anything. Johnny smells like cigarettes and mint, and something flowery that was probably hair product. 

"Let me stay?" he blurts. It comes out more pathetic than anything. 

 

Johnny nods, impatient, like it wasn't even a discussion. "Drop your things here. We're going to the Hacienda." 

An hour later they're sat at the DJ stand on the balcony, playing to an audience of about ten below them, since it was the middle of the afternoon. But they were all dancing- sort of- and Johnny looks absurdly pleased. 

"Bloody hell," Bernard says. "This is for us?" 

Johnny looks at him, grinning. It sounded different. It wasn't New Order, that's for sure. It wasn't the Smiths. Bernard thinks he might even like it. 

"Maybe faster," he says instead. Johnny turns the dial and the sit there, watching the stragglers drifting around the dance floor for any change. After a while Johnny bursts out laughing, and Bernard shakes his head. 

"What do you think?" Johnny says. 

Bernard considers. "I like it. Let's go eat something though, I'm starving.  _ Months  _ of nothing but burgers, John." 

 

-

 

He takes Johnny sailing. He ignores telephones ringing in his vicinity. Not that the rest of them tried very hard to get back in contact- it was easier to let go. A band, he knows, is exactly like a marriage where you're stuck with people you're not sure you like anymore but there's too much you've built together to risk tearing apart. So it was easier to drift, even though enough time had passed that the radio silence could no longer be blamed from being sick of each other on tour. 

 

Johnny gets the hang of sailing so fast Bernard's impressed. Maybe Johnny's just a quick learner, but he's nimble, too, and light on his feet. Somehow he understands that Bernard could just focus on the tasks at hand, when they're on the water, without having to think too much about what comes next. Sometimes they sit and put a record on, watching the sleek silver of weak sunlight glinting off the waves. 

"Bernard," Johnny says. Bernard blinks himself out of it, flashing light on water everywhere. They’ve made the hour journey out to the Lakes again, since the record was driving them both insane. Bernard thinks the sailing-  _ the running away from his problems _ \- was growing on Johnny, since he’d made very little protest on leaving the music. 

“Come here,” Johnny says, patting the space beside him. He looks like he’s concentrating very hard on something, with the same thoughtful notch in his forehead that appeared when he was bent over a guitar. Bernard shuffles over, squeezing into the space. The boat rocks a bit, with both of their weights concentrated on one side. 

“Lean out,” Johnny says, flapping his hands. Bernard raises an eyebrow at him but does as he’s told, the motion making waves slop up over his hands. The water was deep green and murky at the depths. 

“What?” 

“Shhhh-” Johnny says, clapping a hand over Bernard’s mouth. “Listen.” 

So Bernard listens, wondering if Johnny had gotten into the E before they left, but all he only hears the slap of waves against the edge of the boat and the sail fluttering- after a while he can distinguish the brief squawk of seabirds, and some faint crackle that could just be the wind, or someone else sailing on the far side of the lake- Johnny’s looking at him, solemn faced.  

_ Oh, _ he thought, staring into Johnny’s eyes. They were deeply brown, crinkling at the sides, oddly vulnerable with no eyeliner on. 

He opens his mouth to tell Johnny he’s kind of getting it, whatever it is, and Johnny grins before he could make a sound, hand tightening on Bernard’s arm for a brief second before letting go and giving Bernard a shove in the center of his back.

The hard stinging contact of the water like a slap- silver bubbles gushing out of his lungs in one surprised whoosh- the thought  _ Johnny you fucking bastard _ \- until he kicks out, hands breaking the surface like a man digging himself out of grave dirt. Johnny’s laughing loud and delighted above him, leaning over the water with his hands on the rail.

Bernard floats on to his back and flips Johnny two fingers, but he couldn’t help smiling somehow, the sky flat and blue from horizon to horizon above him. 

“Bernard!” He hears Johnny yell. “Come on.”

Johnny’s still grinning, one hand outstretched, like he knew what was coming. So Bernard obliged and pulls him in.

  
  


-

 

Making a record with Johnny was easy. It floors Bernard at the worst moments. Not the music itself, exactly: that remained groping along in the dark, making demo after demo until something clicked. But everything else. He didn’t have to ask Johnny if it was alright to bring the tapes to the Hacienda, or show up at 4am with anyone he can convince to the studio to be guinea pigs for a new track, because Johnny loved it. It’s close to 6am, and Bernard’s watching Johnny at the mixing desk, chin propped on his hands, twiddling the dial and squinting at people dancing. He looked like a mad scientist, not a rock god. 

“Oi,” he says, walking over. He slumps against Johnny and listens to the song- it’s Bernard’s version, currently, that Johnny’s been working on. “This sounds great.”

Johnny laughs, sticks an arm around him and ruffles his hair. Bernard fights the urge to bury his face in Johnny’s shoulder, and can’t remember why he shouldn’t. So he does, and they sit while the sun rises and the birdsong mixes quietly with the synths. 

 

-

 

"I know you're sick of touring," Johnny says. It’s spring and they’ve opened every window in the house, everything airy and smelling like sweet grass. Johnny’s lounging on the sofa, plucking at an acoustic absently. Despite his proclamations about the synth Bernard's amused that he inevitably ends up with a guitar in his arms. "But we’ll have to tour for the album." 

"Good thing you said," Bernard says, deadpan. "We're supporting Depeche Mode in August.” 

Johnny sits up. He smirks. 

 

-

 

There’s still the summer to get through, and the World Cup. He end up seeing the rest of the band because they’re commissioned for the world cup song- which became a surreal experience: catching Gillian’s eyes over the mixing desk while Paul Gascoigne pointed at the thing and roared, “That’s a big organ you’ve got!” and trying, desperately, not to burst out laughing. Peter and Stephen swaying awkwardly in the background of their music video, Johnny talking him into an Elvis costume, getting drunk with England starters after recording. 

Johnny’s excited enough about football that Bernard just uses his studio to record his bits of World in Motion, then send it off for the rest of the band to finish. The first time Bernard finds out Johnny’s unfortunate football affiliations he’d needled him for two hours straight, till Johnny threatened to break the sequencer they’ve just built to shut him up.  _ A lad from Salford supporting City?  _ But it made sense, in a way, that Johnny’s rebel streak ended up with him sneaking off to watch City in Moss side alone with his whole family supporting United. 

“I could’ve played for City,” Johnny says one day while they were zoning out in front of the television, watching a long drawn out goalless match while they waited for Neil to do his bit on the next track. Bernard looks at him; Johnny didn’t seem the type to brag about his nonexistent football skills, like the working lads down in the pubs.  _ I could’ve played for anyone if I hadn’t been injured.  _

“Really,” Johnny says, catching his look and smiling. “I had trials with them and everything.” 

“Then why didn’t you?” Bernard hadn’t kicked a ball in earnest since playground days. Which stands to reason; he was completely shit. 

Johnny shrugs. “I loved music more.” 

Bernard could imagine it, if he closed his eyes- Johnny tearing down the wing in a baggy kit, smirking at the opposition before passing the ball in a perfect arc to the forwards. Johnny’s too skinny now to make the image stick, but it was still sort of lovely, imagining Johnny-the-footballer, wind blowing back his hair, all legs. Bernard tacks on a United crest on imaginary Johnny’s chest just for the hell of it. 

Johnny catches him grinning and shoves him over. 

 

-

 

It’s a week before they have to leave, when he gets back from the Hacienda, alone, for once, and Johnny’s sitting in the studio. There’s no music on, which was strange. He flops down next to Johnny, and flips through their pile of records for something to put on. 

“Bernard,” Johnny says. His voice is strangely thoughtful. It made Bernard stop and look at him, feeling like he’s sobered up just from the strangeness of it. They’ve become attuned to each other, the past few weeks. 

“What happened?” 

“Got a phone call,” Johnny says, still in that thoughtful, measured tone. He’s picking at the edge of the sofa, where the fake leather was slowly peeling off from too much use. “From the American Factory branch.” 

“What?” It still didn’t make sense. “About the tour?” 

 

“No,” Johnny says. “About working with Morrissey. He asked if I wanted to work with him again. Implied it’s in Electronic’s best interests to.”

“Fucking hell.” Now that it made sense it makes Bernard want to find Morrissey and smack his head right off his shoulders. It probably wasn’t even Morrissey’s idea, just some bigwig’s misconstrued idea of how to promote their new band. 

“It’s alright,” Johnny says. He shakes his head like he’s clearing his thoughts away. “I said I won’t do it.” 

“Johnny,” Bernard starts. He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. 

“Drink?” Johnny says quickly. “I’m  _ not  _ drinking Pernod, so it’s all yours.” 

Bernard shrugs. They settle on the floor of the studio with the record player in front of them, albums spread out around them like they were teenagers again, not needing to think about music in terms of work. Still, Bernard puts on Kraftwerk, because he’d been meaning to sample it for some tracks. Sometimes there’s no distinction anymore- it makes him ache, vaguely, this feel of years speeding up. 

 

They’d had an unspoken pact, from the beginning, not to talk about Morrissey. Not that Bernard had wanted to. And he didn’t want to talk about Ian- not that Johnny was interested, either. But it felt like this would be the time, if they did. It felt like something they needed to share, for the album, for the tour, for their own band. Bernard realises they’ve always been so careful, with Electronic. Because it was theirs, and because so much of it wasn’t actually the music, but just the two of them, but now they’re at some kind of precipice. With the album out, there’s no longer any hope of it being just them. It’s already, in fact, being dragged into the shit that New Order’s been mired in, the contracts and advertisements and deals. 

He doesn’t know when they get actually drunk enough to talk about it, just that they’re lying on opposite sofas, dragged very close so they can keep passing the bottle. Bernard succumbs to the vodka, mostly because he couldn’t face getting up to get another Pernod from the kitchen. 

“He just shut me out,” Johnny says, staring at the ceiling with big wounded eyes. Bernard notices absently that his face was glowing, like light discs. Angelic, almost. It was definitely the drinks talking, but still. Johnny’s all bright and warm.  “He just shut me out. I can’t take that- who can take that? How do you go from- from- everyday- to nothing-” 

“Mmm,” Bernard says, eloquently. He hands over the vodka bottle to Johnny, who takes an obliging swig and snuggles down deeper into the sofa. 

“Yeah,” Johnny says, dreamily. Then, “So what was Ian like.” 

 

He catches Bernard off guard, even though Bernard sees this coming. He thinks about it, really thinks, this time, not just- shuts it out behind a wall or something, surrounded by the comfort of silence. Maybe only because it was Johnny. Maybe only because he wants it to be different, with Johnny. 

What was Ian like? He was funny. He’d laugh at the most innocuous things. He played stupid pranks with a straight face. Bernard could listen to him sing all day, and he did.  

What was Ian like? Alive. A person. Fractured and all. It’s been so long since he really thought about Ian, as a person and not just as a missing space, that all at once it sort of condenses everything in his stomach and makes him want to hurl. 

“He was just,” Bernard says, and then tips over, slowly, onto his side, letting gravity take him. Johnny’s watching him from the opposite sofa, his arm flopped out over the divide. His face is just his face now, no longer glowing. Bernard reaches out and tangles their fingers together over the air, holds on for dear life. “He was just Ian.” 

 

-

 

They go to Los Angeles for the first Electronic live shows with a whole retinue of people, which made everything a lot more festive than the events warranted. In the plane Johnny’s in the aisle seat, looking faintly queasy and gripping Bernard’s arm a little too hard upon landing.  

“This stadium’s weird,” Johnny says, hands on his hips on stage. They’re setting up for the show and Bernard’s so hungover he feels every single reflected sun ray in his brain. There’s so much sun- so many metal bits on the stage- it feels as loud as putting his ear directly next to the speakers. 

“Johnny,” he says, gesturing. His voice cracks about seven times on a syllable. “Give me your sunglasses.” 

Johnny pats him on the shoulder and drapes his coat over Bernard’s head like a tent, but refuses to give up his sunglasses. 

“Wanker,” Bernard whispers. His voice sounds like a mayfly at this point. Johnny laughs so hard he almost drops his guitar. 

He’s got no idea how they make it through the first show, except he almost throws up several times in between songs. Johnny tells him, after, patting his back while he throws up for real in the toilets, that he sounded alright. 

 

“You would say that,” Bernard says, between rinsing his mouth under the tap. His teeth ached and his face hurt in weird places and they’ve played as Electronic in front of a real live audience who weren’t their friends for the first time. They danced- Bernard saw that much. That alone makes him want to swoop Johnny up and stage dive, like those hard rock wankers. 

“We’re good, aren’t we,” he says instead. Johnny smiles. And they go out to do it all over again. 

 

-

 

They put out the album in May, finally, and then it’s all interviews and tour dates all over the world, as much as they can. It wasn’t like Johnny’s a tempering influence, because he wasn’t. Whatever Johnny does he does with an intensity all his own, so maybe having Johnny with him wasn’t as much temperance as putting gasoline on fire. Somehow- still- it felt like the good kind of burning, even though some part of Bernard knows it’s the same honeymoon feeling all new bands get in the beginning, when everything’s going well and their album’s climbing the charts and every tired toured-out city in the world feels like something fresh and different. 

Somehow- still. Johnny in the dance clubs in New York City, yellow cabs and bright lights and the subway clattering underneath them. In Paris, in Glasgow, in Berlin, and every time at the interviewer:  _ We’re Electronic.  _

 

-

 

It has to end some time, so they fly back to Manchester to say their goodbyes. Johnny’s leaving for more collaborations in California. Tony’s calls were getting hard to ignore, anyway. There’s a decision Bernard has to make that he’d put off by ignoring. 

He’s dithering by the departure entrance, helping Johnny load his bag on those little carts with squeaky wheels. Johnny’s looking at him, sort of knowingly. 

Bernard fumbles for something to say, right then. Something to distill all the months of work that wasn’t quite work, months of living in each other’s pockets, building sequencers from morning to night to morning. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he says. Then winces. 

Johnny hugs him, tighter than he does normally. Then looks Bernard in the eye and says, seriously, “I’m never leaving you alone, Bernard.” 

“Is that a threat?” 

“If you want.” 

He laughs. Watches Johnny push his cart into the sliding airport doors and feels like a room with the door left open and a light on. 

 

-

 

Factory’s in dire straits. He goes to meetings again, struggling hard to stay awake while Tony tries to explain all the things they could feasibly do to stop the inevitable slide into bankruptcy. It’s there, in unspoken invisible letters- they need to make another record. 

At least it sort of brings the band together. He can see on Peter and Stephen and even Gillian’s faces what they thought about being forced to write a record. After the third meeting in as many days, he catches Peter outside the Hacienda, sucking on a cigarette grimly. He doesn’t look up when Bernard walks over. 

"It's not going to last," he says to the top of Peter’s head, not sure what he even means. Definitely the club. Maybe the band, too. Peter looks at him- his face is all open and soft for a change, like Bernard being straightforward had stripped all his anger away. If it was  _ always _ that easy- 

"I know," Peter says. "Have to try anyway. Or else what?" 

Bernard nods. 

"See you at the studio? We can get something general down and then take turns going in." 

"See you," Bernard echos. He watches Peter stroll away, hands stuck in his pockets, wind rifling his hair. He's not changed so much, since the early days. But that's not true. Ian's changed them all. 

 

He couldn't run forever. It’s not like Electronic was an escape, but it  _ was _ , almost. It's not like he wants to leave New Order. He remembers this one time overseas, with Johnny. They stayed in the hotel room all night instead of going out, because Bernard was adamant that he’d never been able to do that. Johnny had looked at him, head tilted to one side like he didn’t understand what Bernard was on about.  _ Bernard, _ he’d said,  _ if you want to stay in, then just do it.  _ So they did. He fell asleep with his head in Johnny’s lap and the television playing vacuum cleaner commercials and when he woke up Johnny just laughed and said,  _ Was that so hard?  _

 

It’s not really that simple, making decisions. No one ever said Bernard's a genius. He's just a Manchester United fan. 

  
  
  


-

 

He thinks about not going in. Really, seriously thinks, stripped of everything he's been trying to hide behind for so long. If he doesn't try at all, what would happen? The truth is he's been running too hard to really see what's been happening. How he's been tearing himself into bits, hoping it was enough. Turned himself inside out, trying to find anything. Was this how Ian felt? That there's no choice?

 

Anyway- in the end- it wasn’t really the end. Ian would probably materialize in corporeal form just to whack him on the head with his own guitar if he walked away. But it wasn’t true, that, the fact is Ian would never do anything again, no matter how much he, Bernard, wanted him to. He only left behind a space, which was up to Bernard to fill. Maybe he never envisioned the band to end up like this, in debt and in charge of a money sucking night club and sick and tired of each other to the bone. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. But there's always a choice. It’s a bit like this, then- 

 

_ Stumbling on to the stage. He barely manages to avoid tripping over the cables. Everyone’s staring at him, the people expecting Joy Division, Peter (accusingly), Stephen (eyes fixed somewhere on Bernard’s shoulder) and he picks up his guitar. He adjusts the microphone down. He licks his lips, twice. The room spins, rights itself, and he’s not looking anywhere but his fingers.  _

 

_ Peter starts. He always does- impatient. The bass tears into the waiting silence like he’s daring anyone there to judge them, and Stephen follows in, metronome steady. He thinks- fuck- he picks up the pernod on the floor and drinks, puts it back down.   _

 

_ Then he plays. Then he sings, eyes shut. And somehow he gets the words out, and Ian’s not there. Ian’s not there.  _

  
  


-

  
  


He’s the last to get to the studio the next day, and Stephen’s messing with his Oberheim, plugging it in and unplugging it, so Bernard walks up to him first. “What’s wrong with it?” 

Stephen glances at him, smiles distractedly. “Oh. Barney. I can’t get it to stop stuttering. Might have dropped some water on it yesterday and now-” He waves a hand over it, like he expected it to come to life. 

Bernard pats him on the shoulder. “It’s probably fine.” 

“No it’s not,” Peter says, huffily. Looking over their shoulders. His bass whacks Bernard on the thigh, seemingly innocuous. Bernard resists the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Can we please-” Gillian starts. 

The drum machine chooses that particular moment to erupt into Stephen’s pre-programmed sequence and Stephen flails. The thumping beat goes on for ages while Stephen twists knobs, Peter yelling, Gillian batting at Stephen, Bernard with his hands over his ears. 

“Jesus,” Stephen says, when it finally got quiet. 

For some reason, this strikes Bernard as the funniest thing in the world, and all of a sudden he’s laughing, so hard and high and unforced that it made all three of them start giggling along with him, till they’re all on the floor in tears. When it finally subsides it feels like some things between them were fixed, somehow, despite not voicing them aloud. Not everything. But maybe enough. 

“Are we ready?” Bernard says, after. Peter glares at him, but he walks over to the 8 track and flips the switch. 

_ Till the wheels fall off _ , Bernard thinks. His fingers settle on the microphone. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
